Arts and culture nonprofits face distinctive challenges in the nonprofit sector. They provide intangible benefits that are difficult to quantify, making it harder to demonstrate the immediate impact of donations. Unlike other nonprofits with tangible outcomes like meals served or shelter provided, cultural organizations often deal with abstract impacts, such as promoting creativity or preserving cultural heritage—a dilemma known as “subjective value.”

Long project cycles can deter donors who seek immediate results from their contributions. Building and maintaining an audience or patron base, essential for arts and culture nonprofits, requires continuous and resource-intensive marketing and outreach efforts.

Ballet Lubbock’s inspiring journey

To gain deeper insights into how arts and culture nonprofits can surmount these obstacles, we spoke with Nick Dragga, CFRE, Executive Director of Ballet Lubbock for over a decade.

Ballet Lubbock was founded in 1969 with a mission to change lives by making life-long investments in their dancers, the community, and the arts. They offer tailored instruction to fit any age group, skill level, and style. Despite their challenges, Ballet Lubbock has become an integral part of Lubbock’s cultural landscape.

During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the Ballet Lubbock team not only weathered the storm—they thrived. They successfully closed major and minor capital campaigns, $6 million and $550,000, respectively—the first campaigns in Nick’s career! Donors and event participants even told Nick that they missed the sense of community made possible by the Ballet’s performances—quite a tangible return on investment.

Devotion and leadership drive growth

Merce Cunningham, a pioneer of modern dance, once said, “The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion.” Nick’s devotion to Ballet Lubbock is evident in its remarkable growth, from a $550,000 organizational budget in 2011 to today’s $2.5 million budget, soon to reach $2.8 million. To tackle challenges faced specifically by arts and culture nonprofits—subjective value and perceived elitism—the board prioritized building networks within the Lubbock community.

Board members also contribute personally, adhering to a “Give & Get Policy,” sponsoring gala tables worth $2,000, and making substantial annual donations.

The arts are not a luxury; they are a necessity. They tell people’s stories, they help them be seen, and create community. The arts inspire confidence, ignite joy, and foster family traditions. The arts are what set great cities apart—drawing us in and captivating our hearts.

Nick Dragga, CFRE
Executive Director, Ballet Lubbock

The school’s impressive growth has continued over the years, fueled by generous community support, leading to the opening of a state-of-the-art dance facility in 2004. Since then, student enrollment has quintupled, the budget—including scholarship grants—tripled, and outreach activities expanded through valuable community partnerships. In April 2017, Ballet Lubbock broke ground on their 22,000-square-foot new home at the northeast cornerstone of The Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences, marking a significant milestone in their journey. But Ballet Lubbock is just getting started.

Ballet Lubbock’s success isn’t solely about fundraising and infrastructure. Nick underscores the transformative impact on students: “Our students gain confidence and discipline through dance training just like in sports. Our greatest successes are off stage.”

Advantages and funding

Ballet Lubbock is the sole ballet in the community—standing out amid larger nonprofit medical complexes. Local private foundations are their primary funding source, offering accessibility and a streamlined application process. Government funding, though less substantial, still contributes an average of $95,000 annually from the State of Texas Commission on the Arts (TCA) and about $20,000 from Lubbock City funding, sourced from a hotel hospitality tax. Occasionally, National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funds pass through the TCA. Parents of students make up 20-30 percent of donors, but the majority are community members who value the ballet’s presence and inclusivity.

Ongoing challenges

Nick acknowledges ongoing challenges: “We need to institute a more robust planned giving program, address diversity, equity, and inclusion issues, and expand development. Plus, recruiting dance instructors continues to be challenging as many of our candidates come from outside the area, and part-time positions may be less attractive. But creating full-time positions that match the employee’s talents with Ballet Lubbock’s needs often provides good a solution to meet staffing needs.”

Applying the lessons of one arts and culture nonprofit to all

When asked how Nick’s experiences may apply to other arts and culture nonprofits, he shared: “Building and retaining relationships with all of our stakeholders—not only with donors but also students, their families, alumni, and community—is crucial for success.” His experience at Ballet Lubbock underscores the importance of ongoing relationship cultivation in the nonprofit sector.

Ballet Lubbock’s story and Nick’s ability to respond creatively to challenges can offer valuable insights to all arts and culture nonprofits, highlighting the importance of dedication, leadership, and stakeholder engagement in achieving their missions.

The post Key Challenges Facing Arts And Culture Nonprofits, And How A Texas Ballet Overcomes Them appeared first on Bloomerang.

Challenge

After going through a leadership change, Greenville County Youth Orchestra was looking to ditch Excel and find a real donor CRM to track acknowledgements and tax receipts, and find new funding sources. “We are a very small nonprofit youth orchestra program. While in existence since the 70s, little was done in the way of serious fundraising other than an occasional small grant. About five years ago, under new leadership and new, experienced board members, we began seeking funds from outside our parent base. It became more and more difficult to track our contributions in Excel let alone keep track of acknowledgements and tax receipts,” said Holly Caprell, Executive Director at Greenville County Youth Orchestra.

Solution

Bloomerang’s ease of use and affordability. “We worked with a consultant who helped us review several options. Bloomerang won for ease of use AND cost.” Holly has since come to appreciate the convenience of Bloomerang’s QuickBooks integration for increasing productivity when it comes to data entry and keeping donation data up-to-date. “Many of our donors still use checks. The QuickBooks integration prevents us from having to enter them into both QuickBooks and Bloomerang.”

In addition to Bloomerang’s functionality, Holly touts its intuitiveness, functionality, and continual product updates as another reason to recommend it as a top donor database option to other performing arts organizations like theirs. “It’s a perfect fit for the smaller nonprofit. The price is right and it’s easy to use. I like the fact that you are always looking for ways to improve your product.”

Results

Since implementing Bloomerang, Greenville County Youth Orchestra has alleviated several fundraising pain points around “acknowledgements and tax statements” thanks to the QuickBooks integration. They’ve also seen improvements in productivity and the quality of their constituent communications. With Bloomerang we’ve benefited from “consistency in acknowledgements, ease in sending email messages with little video thank you messages, and less time recording contributions by check or cash.”

Not only have they seen an increase in productivity and efficiency in their development and accounting processes, but Holly and the team at Greenville County Youth Orchestra have also benefited from more visibility into their donor retention metrics and insights from built-in fundraising features to increase their dollars raised metrics. “Being timely with acknowledgments, the ability to send out little messages and letters to prompt annual givers all have increased our annual giving amounts.”

All in all, it’s amazing what an insightful, intuitive, and fundraising-focused database can do for the growth of a performing arts organization such as Greenville County Youth Orchestra.

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It is through our performances that we enhance the cultural vibrancy of West Texas by engaging with our community, inspiring new levels of imagination, and creating memories for generations.

Challenge

Ballet Lubbock was looking for an intuitive, easy-to-use donor management system that could help them take their donor engagement efforts a step further by focusing on relationships and retention instead of just data management. They needed a less clunky system that could give them clear access to their constituents’ data. “We were looking for an intuitive, easy-to-use system that would give us a clear picture of a constituent’s important information on one screen while also helping automate a lot of tasks,” said Nicholas Dragga, Executive Director at Ballet Lubbock.

Solution

With Bloomerang, Nicholas and his team found a system that could help them practice good donor engagement. “We moved from a database that felt clunky and like it was taking a sledgehammer approach. We were spending more time on data management than actual relationship building. Bloomerang’s focus on relationships and donor retention helped us do exactly that: focus on relationships and donor retention (instead of data management)!”

The team at Ballet Lubbock was drawn to Bloomerang’s “intuitive interface, automated tasks (and online donations), and price point,” but have come to appreciate the knowledgeable customer support team at their disposal. “The customer service is parallel to none. Seriously, Bloomerang’s Customer Service is ‘Zappos Level.’ They know and love their product, and will help you figure out how to accomplish your goals.”

Bloomerang has all the features we want and need for a price point that is doable. Plus, the native dashboard alerts help you focus on donor retention and engagement. You’ll spend less time on data management, and more time getting to know your donors. – Nicholas Dragga

Results

Since implementing Bloomerang, Ballet Lubbock has seen improvements with several fundraising pain points. “Before Bloomerang we couldn’t process donations online, track email opens, or really easily track retention or engagement levels.” Now, Nicholas and his team can benefit from positive changes to their donor retention and dollars raised goals. “Since switching to Bloomerang we’ve doubled our annual fund revenue. Our retention rate is up, and our monthly recurring givers have increased ten-fold.”

In addition, the team at Ballet Lubbock has been impressed with how Bloomerang fits into their donor retention and gift development processes. Processing donations and creating acknowledgement letters has never been easier. “Bloomerang’s native features that track and highlight donor engagement and retention strategies help us focus less on data management and more on building relationships with our donors. Processing donations and acknowledgment letters is a breeze – dare I say fun. (and takes half the time now!)”

Nicholas and his team have also seen improvements in both the quality of their constituent communications and their productivity. “The quality and frequency of constituent communication has increased because Bloomerang makes it easy. What used to take 6-7 clicks, now takes 2, so we can get to the data or important things quicker and easier.”

It’s amazing what an intuitive, retention-focused tool and the passionate people behind it can do for the growth of an organization such as Ballet Lubbock. “Your customer service is stellar!”

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